This protest is NOT about poor people. It's about people with good jobs, wanting to preserve the high quality of what they've been able to acquire for themselves. Now, I do think those who are sleeping on the floor of the Capitol rotunda and outside on the frozen ground are young people who don't themselves have good jobs. It's interesting what these kids are putting themselves through for others, who are, presumably, better off than they are. I took this picture, yesterday, of the outdoor sleeping setup:
It had gone down to 11° the night before. Note the underlayer of Ian's Pizza boxes. There is a lot of free food. Ian's, by the way, is doing some kickass branding (without losing any money):
On Monday afternoon, [store manager Staci] Fritz guesstimated that Ian's had delivered upwards of 35,000 slices of pizzas in the last week, all paid for by donations...Keeping it honest... which is good for branding too, of course. They're not just raking in donations without accounting for it all with free pizza delivered to protesters.
Fritz says that while Ian's is still making deliveries and taking donations, it has been very careful to cut off the amount of money it takes in one day. "What if somebody gives a load of money and then suddenly this whole thing is over and we can't deliver anymore? We can't let anyone pay for what we can't promise to deliver."
Madison has a long tradition of its bars and restaurants being sucked into the fervent political activity of the times, such as the Nitty Gritty restaurant and bar's role as the meeting place for the activists who bombed the university's Sterling Hall in 1970.Well, hell... why bring that up? Things have been really peaceful, by and large — to an amazing degree, considering the difficulty of keeping a large, diverse crowd energized enough to look like a good demonstration without tipping any individual over the edge into something ugly, even as the days wear on and on.
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As someone who pays for 100% of my health insurance, on less income than the base Wisconsin teacher salary, I must say that this really pisses me off.
You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em....
Ohio Senate passes bill to restrict public unions
On Monday afternoon, [store manager Staci] Fritz guesstimated that Ian's had delivered upwards of 35,000 slices of pizzas in the last week, all paid for by donations...
I'm sure the Statehouse aroma is delectable: old pizza mixed with unwashed bodies. (Reminds me of college.)
I get the feeling that the students of Madison are acting like sheep. They are sacrifing for people who make more money than half of these students will make. And they ARE of course coming from a mindset that these higher than average wage earners are impoverished.
It is evident in the rhetoric and fervor. But there is no victim here, this is an economic adjustment and an exercise in Democracy.
How many of these young adults will see that this situation does not fit the narrative they have been programmed to assume? I would say at least 25%. How will they adjust and cope? Will they drop out of politics or college or life for awhile? Will they turn over to conservatism?
Many of them have lived and operated in the University world for their entire adult lives. I recall seeing folks at all the universities I have attended who were too old to be there. They were not students so much as professional student aides. The are not returning to school, they never left.
How will these folks do in the coming burt of the educational bubble?
Interesting times ahead.
Trey
I thought you were going to say Potterville.
This speaks volumes about the state of modern public education. These kids are not educated well enough to realize that they are the ones that will bear the brunt of the irresponsible debt they are encouraging.
My, nice how Madison decided to turn their Capitol into a homeless shelter.
Great idea.
These kids are not educated well enough to realize that there exists such a thing as "irresponsible debt".
When they graduate and can't pay off their loans, Pogo, they will learn.
Well thats even dumber. The only association Hooter's has in all this is as the refuge of Fleebagger 14 (ie. The Titlted Kilt).
Oh. I see you realized how lame that was and deleted it....
they need to bring up the bombing because leftwingers and unions have a violent history and often resort to it when things don't go their way.
I live in WI. My local school board, as most of them, is made up of former teachers and/or private sector union members. Rather than waiting for the bill to pass so they can save our district money by bidding out insurance, they are all scrambling to sign contracts with the union now so the teachers and the union are happy. Then they will blame Walker for the inevitable lay-offs and program cuts.Its pathetic.
Iowahawk answers the NYT's Krugman, who claims that collective bargaining Wisconsin teachers outperform non-collective bargaining Texas teachers:
Longhorns 19, Badgers 1
Well and succinctly said David and Pogo. They do not understand the concept of other people's money. They believe that the government has it's own money.
Getting a job will really help them, unless the left turns them into bitter victims, then they and we will be in trouble.
Thank God for the country kids who know they have to work and expect to be able to keep what is theirs.
TTrey
I don't know. I doubt there are many business majors in the bunch. I'm guessing that most students participating in these activities hope one day to be on the government gravy train as well. They're just trying to be proactive.
I find this to be the common tactic of the left, not just of student leftists.
For instance, you'll encounter all over the web, the leftist insistence that people are starving to death in the U.S.
Of course, the real health problem in the U.S. is obesity, as our meddling nanny-state First Lady keeps telling us.
The leftists, and the kids, want to be involved in heartfelt dramas featuring the poor and oppressed versus the rich and oppressive.
And, they commonly manufacture this scenario, even where it doesn't it exist.
Gay people in the U.S. are just like blacks in the Jim Crow south. Their teachers tell them that, too.
Tmink, its not jsut students acting like sheep. My brother is 60 years old and down there at the capitol every day off. Clearly he doesnt want any of his wife's (a teacher) cushy benefits tampered with. He is an intelligent man, the fact that he swallows the union line is puzzling. I think the real source of his anger is that the republicans DARED to win control - this is leftover anger from November. And i bet thats what it is with a lot of these protesters.
This is all fun and games, until someone gets hurt or freezes to death or loses a couple of digits to frostbite.
The threat is joblessness. The jobs are going, going, gone. Government jobs are being treated like an entitlement that cannot be cut. But all prices are set to go up fast (I.e., the dollar's value is set to sink fast). The only real answers are jobs from real oil and coal energy production and incentives to capital investment in the USA. Those two missing factors have been at the mercy of the Obama/Soros gang who have had no mercy at all.
Mary, good point.
Trey
Also, the whole "Walkerville" crap (also similar to the actual homeless tent city in Seattle called Nicklesville or whatever) also shows that there is no original creative thinking among the Left anymore.
Branding aside, how is Ian's pizza? You have that Jersey-Brooklyn connection Ann, so you presumably know decent pizza. What's the verdict?
I marched with Abbie Hoffman during the May Day demonstrations in 1970. At that event I realized that a majority of the attendees were in it just for the fun. This protest is an "event." The kids camping out will talk about in a few years like it was Woodstock.
Bitterly clinging to their bankrupted entitlements...
Do they use Wisconsin cheese?
Crack, you're particularly on the money today.
Back when I was involved in men's issues we said it a little different:
Liberal women want the government to be their daddy and their husband.
The result for men is as you say... divorce, being excluded from their children's lives, having their personal assets ransacked by the state.
Everybody needs a cause.
Some are better than others.
Violating the state constitution and a court order is an excellent way to silence your critics!
I wonder if the moment when one of these professional student dupes becomes aware that he is a useful, gullible idiot is a quick or drawn out experience? Did it ever occur to them that at some point in time the grownups paying the bills would do what their parents never did which is to throw them out of the nest and support themselves?
My "Come to JESUS" moment came one tired morning after working all night. All I wanted was a glass of orange juice and some milk to go with my cold cereal before hitting the sack. Unfortunately, some layabouts sleeping on the floor, who I had never seen before, had beat me to it. I threw them all out since I was paying the rent and became a Conservative Republican.
As for the pizzas, who do these pachouli, deodorantless wreaking sad sacks think is going to pay for their cholesterol medicine when their triglicerides and lipids peak at about 400? Now that I think about it, I wonder if I could make any money marketing hemp Depends?
HMMM...
More like Toonerville, by appearance and era.
Spring rains are great at washing away the detrius of winter.
Well, hell... why bring that up?
maybe Karleton Armstrong has been at the protests. y'all are tolerant that way. I wonder which side he supports.
"Things have been really peaceful, by and large "
Ahhh, this mimics perfectly the MSM description of a lefty protest (ie, one which they approve of). That means there's been screaming, vulgar signs, physical intimidation of any opponents present, verbal and written (on signs) threats of violence against opponents, verbal rhetoric and signs comparing opponents to Hitler and Nazis in general, arrests, and often property damage.
It's a pretty regular occurrence for lefty protests where store windows are smashed, graffti painted on private and public property, and a few Molotov cocktails are thrown or a police car or two set on fire, to be described by the media as "largely peaceful". (See anti-war protests, G20 protests)
When protests are described as "largely peaceful", you can be sure that the protest is a left wing one.
By the standards the media have for left wing protests, this one in Madison is peaceful. By the standards they have for the right, it's been terribly violent, uncivilized, unreasonable and cause for talking heads to spend hours on the air worrying about the threat to democracy itself that these protests signify.
Oh, and racist.
@Fred4Pres
For the love of Pete! You want to start a pizza war here?
I'm sure Althouse will appreciate the 300 comments, but think about the effect on the signal to noise ratio for a moment.
?This protest is an "event." The kids camping out will talk about in a few years like it was Woodstock.
I think this is probably true. I wondered over to the 2000 Bush Recount protests at the Supreme Court over my lunch break just out of curiosity (I didn’t protest). Those kind of events are great for people watching.
Plus, never underestimate what college kids will go through for free food. Seriously.
Do they use Wisconsin cheese?
@Shark
You bet your cloaca they do.
Obamaville more accurate as Obama has implemented failed Hoover policies of deficit spending and failed stimulus program like the Emergency Relief and Reconstruction Act. In 1932 Hoover signed the largest tax increase to that time which Obama wanted but punted after election returns of 2010/
Obamaville is more appropriate. Obama has copied Hoover's program of defict spending and stimulus spending (Emergency Relief and Construction Act). He wanted to duplicate the 1932 tax increase but gave up after 2010 election.
Yea, Ohio!
Thank you, Gov. Kasich, and good luck to Gov. Walker.
It's interesting what these kids are putting themselves through for others ...
For others? Gratuitous assumption on your part.
These people aren't normal with their drums and signs and shit. Why can't they bring cash through the side doors like everyone else?? Or even better rent a lobbying office across the street. Jesus Christ.
Thank you, Gov. Kasich, and good luck to Gov. Walker.
More power for big government, and less for the people. Yay!
I hope the pizza donations are being recorded as campaign contributions. I mean this is Feingold territory right?
Send in the Daleks. (Bonus: Garage and his ilk will be pulled from the crowd and transformed into pig slaves.)
Garage never fails with the "Look! Over there!" deflections. Like clockwork :)
I trust whatever my government tells me to do and I will fight for their right to make any decisions for me. I'm a libertarian doncha know :)
The only thing "collective" bargaining does is drag every worker down to the level of the laziest worker. Anyone with any ability wouldn't care about collective bargaining as they should profit from doing their job better than others.
This is the way of the white-collar workplace where collective bargaining is non-existence.
The very fact that they are protesting for collective bargaining and that they feel they would not be as compensated as well afterwards shows that they are the bottom dregs of workers (or dumb communists like the students protesting with the union workers).
We should give all the protesters a passport to France and a stipend. Then we can have all the entitled, lazy people in the world in one place.
More power for big government, and less for the people. Yay!
You have it exactly backwards.
These protesters are the government. They want to continue to pay politicians [with our tax dollars] to pay them more in salary and benefits [with our tax dollars]. And too much is never enough.
You are severely confused if you think public workers who belong to unions are "the people." They are the system, and a big part of it that bankrupts our states.
Ian's Pizza is fabulous. As in it tastes really really good. Excellent, excellent crust.
Garage!! I think you have hit on something important. Drums for lobbyists. Why haven't they thought of that instead of paying for all that research and buying all those Gucci shoes they could just drum their way to success for their clients. Outstanding thought.
You are severely confused if you think public workers who belong to unions are "the people." They are the system, and a big part of it that bankrupts our states.
States without unions or collective bargaining are no better off financially than ones that do have it. Wisconsin is not broke. From the WSJ no less. Why does the right continually fall for blatantly false bullshit?
" Madison has a long tradition of its bars and restaurants being sucked into the fervent political activity of the times, such as the Nitty Gritty restaurant and bar's role as the meeting place for the activists who bombed the university's Sterling Hall in 1970.
Well, hell... why bring that up?"
They think this association is positive. This is either akin to the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protests, or it's a futile gesture by those who revere those movements but emotionally cannot accept they are over.
States without unions or collective bargaining are no better off financially than ones that do have it.
So collective bargaining doesn't make that much of a difference one way or the other. Good to know, but why then do you continue to shriek about this bill like it's the end of the world?
Garage: results posted on the NAEP Web site, broken down by grade, state, subject and ethnicity. Iowahawks summary: "To recap: white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8, above average in 8.
Perhaps the most striking thing in these numbers is the within-state gap between white and minority students. Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin. In other words, students are better off in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools - especially minority students."
"garage mahal said...
These people aren't normal with their drums and signs and shit. Why can't they bring cash through the side doors like everyone else?? Or even better rent a lobbying office across the street. Jesus Christ."
This is the dirty little secret of the right. I can't tell you the last time a taxpayer was near the capitol building and didn't bring wads of cash. In fact, state officials decreed the revolving doors only in all future buildings to handle the volume.
States without unions or collective bargaining are no better off financially than ones that do have it. Wisconsin is not broke
The article states Wisconsin has a $3+ billion deficit over the next two years.
If the belief is that's a managable level of debt to continually carry over then I suppose that's fine. If you believe that public employees should be able to negotiate for wages and benefits that have to be funded with tax dollars then you should be pushing for increased taxation to ensure their viability.
I don't know why the left believes there is an endless supply of money to pay for more and more government.
So collective bargaining doesn't make that much of a difference one way or the other. Good to know, but why then do you continue to shriek about this bill like it's the end of the world?
Why do you continue to shriek like it's the end of the world because these workers want to keep their collective bargaining rights when it clearly doesn't weaken states fiscal situations?
If Walker were a Democrat, making the same tough choices, I wonder how this would have played out instead?
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/27/blue-state-dems-turn-on-state-local-workers/
I think you'd still have a small scale protest by Madison locals. But, I have my doubts it would have gone National.
Lets watch Illinois and see.
"In fact, both sides are wrong. Despite the differences in rhetoric, killing public sector unions is a nonpartisan policy in the United States. While Republicans are more explicit about their goal, and want to move faster, Democrats and Republicans are both taking steps that will soon reduce the public sector union movement to a shadow of its current self.
Look at Rahm Emmanuel, newly elected mayor of Chicago. Chicago is a dark blue city in a deep blue state; Emmanuel is a career Democratic pol who served as chief of staff to the most liberal American president elected in many years. And what is Emanuel doing?"
The article states Wisconsin has a $3+ billion deficit over the next two years.
When Walker makes a statement, assume it is false first. The 3+ billion deficit he keeps lying about is based off all agency requests that hit his desk, that every governor before him has managed to reconcile without ending bargaining rights. To believe that deficit number you must believe Walker actually will approve every single request, which no governor or legislature has ever done.
Plenty of interesting information can be found when you google "municipal bond crash"
"Ville" is the new "gate."
"Why do you continue to shriek like it's the end of the world because these workers want to keep their collective bargaining rights when it clearly doesn't weaken states fiscal situations?"
Because it does weaken states "fiscal situations" considerably when unsustainable benefits paid out at a future date are negotiated between a monopoly and people whose campaign contributions come from the monopoly.
If anybody thinks it's that peaceful, run the video of Grothman trying to get in the Capitol a couple of days ago.
Rumpletweezer said...
I marched with Abbie Hoffman during the May Day demonstrations in 1970. At that event I realized that a majority of the attendees were in it just for the fun.
Most of the guys in those demonstrations were there because they were hoping to get laid.
To believe that deficit number you must believe Walker actually will approve every single request, which no governor or legislature has ever done.
Garage, that figure was quoted in the same article you linked as supporting your argument that Wisconsin isn't broke.
Why do you continue to shriek like it's the end of the world because these workers want to keep their collective bargaining rights when it clearly doesn't weaken states fiscal situations?
Why do you continue to shriek that public employees need collective bargaining rights? Do the taxpayers who fund those employees have a seat at the negotiating table? Do you think it is ok for public employees union dues (taxpayer dollars) be contributed to a particular political party?
I mean its funny that you get incensed that the Koch brothers (private citizens)gave Walker $42K but see nothing wrong with a taxpayer funded union donating to Democrat causes? I mean Jesus garage .
Because it does weaken states "fiscal situations" considerably when unsustainable benefits paid out at a future date are negotiated between a monopoly and people whose campaign contributions come from the monopoly.
people are starting to wake up and realize this false narrative that the only recourse to balance a budget rests solely off the backs off the middle class, the elderly, or those on medical assistance. If there was a budget crisis in Wisconsin Walker wouldn't give over a 100 million in tax breaks to the wealthy before he even found out where the john is.
Shouting Thomas,
Crack, you're particularly on the money today.
Thanks, you "man" you. Yeah, once it hit me, I thought it was particularly striking. Walker's pretty unique because, though others can act up - or act out - he can't be stopped. And, because the fight has such a high profile, the rightness of his position is evident for all to see. Most guys in a divorce have none of that; just the presumption of guilt.
I think logic is finally winning the day again.
For all those who have commented on the "irresponsible" etc., attitude of the young towards debt and money I have a dispiriting story to tell which suggests that large swaths of the public think "Government money" somehow wafts in beamed in by, oh, I don't know, say Ming the Merciless' money ray from the planet Mongo.
Years ago at old General Hospital in Louisville my wife the RN was discussing/questioning the appropriateness of running a series of very expensive, painful, and invasive exotic tests on a patient when all previous standard tests had all shown the same results. "Who cares about the costs? "one RN said. "The Government is paying for them." "You damn fool" my wife replied, "who do you think 'the government' is? Those are OUR taxes that are paying for those needless tests!" (And the nurse in question was a college grad, too.)
The poor dears slept in the cold for the union bosses to spend $1.6 millions of the taxpayers, their parents' money for a retreat in 5-star resorts. Selfless sacrifices for the greedies.
Why nothing on the probable collusion of the mayor of Madison, union chiefs, and flee baggers to delay the passage of the law in time for the public employee unions to be given sweet-heart deals?
If you had some way of rating posts I would for sure give you a high rating my friend!
cadillac-parts
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